


An 'Uncle's' Influence

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22083787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: As a child, Blair spends time in Finland
Kudos: 9





	An 'Uncle's' Influence

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sentinel Thursday prompt 'finish'

An 'Uncle's' Influence

by Bluewolf

Blair had once told Jim that every man Naomi met fell in love with her. He didn't add that it wasn't automatically reciprocal, although she did fall in love very easily. But she also fell out of love very easily.

Although some of the time it was just Blair and Naomi, basically Blair grew up with a succession of 'uncles'. Some he liked, some he didn't, but he learned when he was still very young the best way to react to any of them, from remaining most of the time out of sight to responding with real or pretended enthusiasm to whatever they thought might interest him.

Some were men Naomi met when they were on holiday, and Blair visited several countries because she went with them to their home countries when their holiday ended.

Blair was eleven when Naomi met Levo Takala, a Finnish man who had been attending Washington State University. Uncle Levo had been studying anthropology, had just earned his Masters at WSU and hoped to make the Saami people of his home country the subject of a PhD dissertation. He knew he would have to include the Saami of Norway, Sweden and possibly Russia in his study, but hoped to concentrate on the Finnish Saami.

Naomi listened to Levo's plans for his dissertation with a polite interest assumed because of her affection for him; Blair, on the other hand, listened enthralled. His travels to other countries with Naomi had already given him an interest in the culture and way of life of different people and listening to Uncle Levo deepened that, and made him think that anthropology could well be a subject worth studying once he finished school and could go to university.

He knew - and regretted - that Naomi was unlikely to stay with Uncle Levo for more than two or three months, and set out to learn as much as he could about anthropology before she decided to 'detach with love' and move on. And it seemed that Uncle Levo understood that she would move on - unlike one or two of her earlier partners, who had assumed that she would be happy to stay with them. Fairly early in their relationship, Uncle Levo told Blair that if possible he would like Blair to stay in touch, and that if Blair did indeed make anthropology his career, he would be happy to help if he could.

***

Once he went to Rainier Blair wondered if he should lean on Uncle Levo's expertise with the Saami, but on consideration he decided to make the people of the Amazon the focus of his studies - and then he found Burton's book about sentinels, and his focus changed again.

This time, he knew his interest wouldn't change. This interest would never finish, but continue and develop. And one day he hoped he would meet a full five-heightened-senses sentinel and be able to study what the man could do.

And he did.

Though even at his most optimistic Blair didn't expect to find a very close friend; and while they had a few ups and downs and misunderstandings in the first four years of their partnership, he and Jim finally settled into a co-dependence that both men knew would last the rest of their lives; the only thing that would finish it would be death. And that wasn't something either of them was prepared to think about for many, many years.


End file.
